Armchair BEA--Classics

Image by Sarah of Puss Reboots

Classics! I have read some. Let's see...Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is my all-time favorite book. Period. Classic story of overcoming our past and learning to love unconditionally and staying true to who you are.

Persuasion by Jane Austen. My personal favorite of Austen's. It's a powerful love story. One that stands the test of time. People can change. Good stuff.

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I read this in 2 days, it would have been one if I hadn't had school the next day. Something about Rhett and Scarlett and true love and all that...

Shakespeare. He's a classic. I've read The Merchant of Venice and Romeo & Juliet. Both were very hard to read but oh, so worth it. If you can't get into actually reading them, I recommend the movies. A great way to piece it all together visually. Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream are probably my favorite movies for Shakespeare. I also saw The Merry Wives of Windsor on stage a few years back! Something about the visual helps bring out the subtext and main points. Pure genius. Then you have modern-retellings....10 Things I Hate About You for The Taming of the Shrew.

I think "classics" can be tough because they really do speak to us on a subconscious level, not every single one, but almost. Books really help us to make a sense of what the author was experiencing in his/her age and time. And the fact that so many reach out to us and make them classics says a lot about the human experience and how universal it is across time.

I say pick one up. There are so many to choose from, from any time and place. Hug a book and mourn for a second that we have lost so much to time but then be ever so grateful that we have as much knowledge as we do, the eternal nature of ideas and the eternal way to share those ideas with others.